The second Wednesday of our vacation saw Dana and Maddie touring the historic (but oh so secretive - no phones were permitted on the premises!) bunker at The Greenbrier, while Daniel and I used the time to explore the little town of White Sulphur Springs. Since we had chosen to spend our short time at The Greenbrier taking advantage of its many amenities, we hadn't done our typical deep dive into the surrounding community. We rectified this today by waking up early so we could all have breakfast at the local spot, where the servers were lovely and friendly and the locals regulars. Back at the hotel, we packed up and checked out.
As Dana and Maddie headed off to learn the fascinating history of how this bunker was kept stocked and ready to house all the members of Congress (while their families would be permitted to stay in the guest rooms at the resort, which, ostensibly, wouldn't suffer the consequences of a nuclear fallout?!), Daniel and I headed off to browse a few stores, talk to some locals working them, drive around the neighborhood, and even spot the darling Brad Paisley Community Park, named to honor the country music star, a native of the state, who donated 200,000 dollars to the community after they suffered a flood in 2017.
With a lunch date at Kellerman's awaiting us, we bought a couple of chocolate chip cookies for the road (after learning it was National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day from a cute little cafe downtown), swooped up the other half of our core four, and bid a heartfelt goodbye to West Virginia. For the next 90 minutes, we would drive through some of the most picturesque scenery we had yet encountered, and that's saying something! As we passed a sign welcoming us to Virginia, and then another welcoming us to West Virginia, and so on, we realized we were driving through the area known as the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, Wow, is it spectacular! It's become a family joke that I am so moved by dappled sunlight through the forest leaves, but when I unintentionally cut off Dana's retelling of the bunker history with a not so melodic song of appreciation, I quickly realized I not only needed to apologize in the moment but I would be regretting it for some time to come. The kids are not likely to let me forget that one.
We arrived to Kellerman's (aka Mountain Lake Lodge), a lodge with a rich history dating back to 1851 but most famous as the setting for the 1987 film - and Sophia's favorite! - Dirty Dancing, around 1:00 and spend the next few hours enjoying a delicious lunch on the patio where Baby first sees Johnny Castle and recreating lots of moments from the film all over the property. The mystery of the lake is fascinating. It dried up completely in 2002, thought it came back a bit about a decade later. It once again is completely dry, but the signs warning against swimming and fishing remain.
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| Where the Houseman's sat for dinner |
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| The Appalachian Mountains are beautiful |
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| Only Maddie puts Maddie in a corner! |
While the missing lake is certainly a blow to a resort titled Mountain Lake Lodge, the gorgeous Appalachian mountains offer no shortage of opportunity for recreation and the combination of tourists with Dirty Dancing nostalgia and families visiting their students at nearby Virginia Tech likely keeps the resort thriving. We would certainly come back for a full family vacation!
After bidding farewell to a darling black bear cub who was too quick to be photographed and a sweet deer who kindly slowly walked across the road for me, we headed down to Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech, for a driving tour of the campus and a walking tour of the original 16 block downtown area, first founded by William Black in 1798. This town's ice cream is all locally sourced; Maddie scored it a solid 8.5.
Most touching to me was the organic memorial to those killed in the 2007 shooting, the deadliest ever at that time, which reminds me of the similar memorial in Gainesville. There is, of course, a more formal memorial actually on the campus, but the fact that this one was still there, tucked on a back wall in an alley where we might have missed it had we driven down a different road somehow made it even more poignant.
We arrived to Charlottesville, home of University of Virginia, around 7:00 PM. Daniel had been proudly sporting one of his 1700 Gator shirts, as he resents their ranking in the top 5 public universities when UF sits at #6. Still, despite his ongoing comparisons to ways Gainesville and UF are superior, he did eventually give in to the charms of the pedestrian walkway, which is a 20 minute walk from our hotel. After all that driving and walking, we collapsed into bed ready for a good night's sleep! Today we're off to do "whatever the hell it is" one does in Monticello.
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